A brief love affair

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Is it okay if I would just like you?
You don’t have to do anything to reciprocate my feelings. I don’t want you to feel like you’ll hurt me or something. I’m okay.

Maybe not really. But I’m used to this already. I’m always the one feeling something more than I should for someone who’ll never feel the same way. I’m totally fine with us being friends. I’m not expecting for something more. I don’t want us to feel awkward with each other.

I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want anything to change. This feeling that I have for you, it just happened. It was inevitable.

You were kind to me. You like the things that I like. I like the songs you like. You’re not perfect but I didn’t care. I still found myself liking you.

And now that I’m starting to admit this to myself, I don’t know what to do next. I don’t want to get caught stealing glances at you. I don’t want to get teased that I’m too cheerful whenever you’re around or my eyes starts to light up whenever you talk to me.

Because if those things would happen, if anyone else notices that I like you, I’m afraid that you would start to ignore me. Please don’t.

I’m pretty sure that this feeling is just temporary and will be gone soon. I’ll force myself to do that. Don’t worry. Like what I said, I’m used to this.

Let it be. When anger is slowly rising in your chest and that when you feel like you’re losing control.

Let it be. When everything seems hopeless.

Let it be. When you feel like your life is so mundane and get envy of other people’s adventures in life.

Let it be. When you just feel so alone and that no one understands you.

Letting things be doesn’t mean that you just get to sit on one side would just watch your life pass you by. It’s about letting things be because the experience, the feelings, the lessons and the new perspective that these negative things that happen in our lives are worthy to be immersed in. For when we feel, that is when we are most human. These negative happenings make us better, stronger and more polished. We are like swords being continuously hit by the blacksmith with his hammer and putting us in the fire and then hammering on us again to make us be the most sensible, strongest and sharpest sword he’d ever made. Let things be because you can’t change it. Pay attention to the things that you can change and you’ll start making the real change that you want. Stressing about the things that you have no control on would only worsen things. So when you feel like everything is just so chaotic and unsolvable, just remember that recurring line in a famous song as you take a deep breath….

One must always be careful of one’s words for it will not only be heard by the person who listens but it will remain in their minds and hearts too and it will be up to you if what you want to remain in them would be positive or negative. I hope most of us would choose to leave a positive influence to those we meet and that we do not harm them with our words.

Words are like knives. We may have heard about that before. We may find that statement a cliche but it wouldn’t be a cliche if it wasn’t true. They are like knives because knives can be used in a positive or in a negative way depending on the person who holds it. There are times when people who would use their knife to assist or to give convenience to other people. But there are those times too when the knife is used to hurt and harm other people.

How can words harm people? They are just words. They can’t inflict scratches on your skin, they can’t cut your flesh deeply…

Words may not affect us physically. But the emotional and mental effects it give us are vital to preserve our whole being. If we are to hear negative things about us, or to be told things that we find highly offensive, our thoughts would immediately alter and form new thoughts that will affect our next calculated actions so that we could cover up the imperfections that was pointed out about us. We become insecure. We lose our trust on other people and perhaps the worst of all, we lose trust on ourselves. We would start to think that we’re worthless, we are not enough and that maybe it would be better if we’re gone in this world. (Well, the last one’s a bit extreme, but in reality, there were really people who had gone as far as killing themselves because of the verbal abuse they’ve gone through).

One of the most relevant example is bullying. I’ve had my fair amount of experiences of being bullied when I was younger. It wasn’t as blunt as many of us have seen in the movies, or maybe it’s really like that in other places, but I haven’t experience that intense kind of bullying. The kind of being bullied that I experienced was the subtle kind. It crept into my skin like a snake looking for a prey, it was definitely there but almost invisible. When it started to creep and started to affect me, it slowly sank into me. That was the part where everything became so dangerous and disturbing. I had a war inside of me. No one knew about it but me, and maybe that was the scariest thing of it all. I began to shrink. My self-esteem went tumbling down. I didn’t want to interact with people, except with my closest friends, because I thought that they would just make fun of me.

I felt I was weak, dumb and ugly. I felt that I didn’t have the right to stand beside those people because they were far above me. I felt so out of place. That was the truth. All of those were happening to me. But the thing was, I pretended that they didn’t matter, that they didn’t exist, that I was okay and that I was just playing along with them. Those people may never realize the effect they had on me. It may never come into their minds how much they’ve hurt me, how much they made me doubt myself so much.

When I went into college and found that some of them were in the same school that I went to, I felt a little scared, because I wanted a new life, I wanted a new beginning, I wanted to change myself, to transform and be a better version of myself. But at that time, I thought that the universe was against me. Why is my world so small? I thought. Why can’t I be free from them?

I tried to ignore them and acted like their presence didn’t affect me whenever we came across the corridors. I tried to forget about them. I tried to move forward. But it seemed utterly impossible when I got to see them many times in a week. I think that I got so good in pretending that I almost believed myself. That was one thing I was scared of, I was almost losing myself. I didn’t change for myself, I changed for them and it wasn’t right.

The universe had its ways. Something happened that I ended up transferring into another university. As I think about it now, maybe that was the time when I became truly free from them. Maybe that was the break I needed, the freedom I craved for, for a long time. I don’t see them much anymore. I’m just reminded of them whenever I see their pictures on the social networking sites. But they don’t have that effect on me anymore. The anger I held on for so long had diminished through time as I realized that holding on to that anger and resentment will not do me any good. So I let go and kept moving forward.

Somehow I am thankful for that experience for I will not be as strong and sure about myself right now if it weren’t for their deeds that made me go through days that were full of doubts.

So for all those who are experiencing bullying or had an experience of being bullied, we are strong people for we get to carry that burden and still choose to continue to live everyday, despite. And I say to you that all shall pass. There will come a day that it will all be over. Just hold on, don’t give up and continue to be strong. You’ll never realize how strong you really are when the situation will require it. You may not know it, but you’ve got more strength that you thought you ever had.

Writing is such an ultimate source of relief for me. It doesn’t matter what I write about. It doesn’t matter how long or how short it would be. The only reason why I write is to share a piece of me. It’s difficult for me to relate and interact with people verbally. I’m not expressive by telling them things. I’m more on doing things or letting them feel things than actually saying things to them. I am not even good in explaining myself in talking. I’d rather be given ten minutes to write about what I want to say that say it straightforward. But of course, life doesn’t work that way.

An introvert, like me, must cope up to the demands of the social world. I’ve been trying my best, though. I’m really trying hard.

Writing is a passion I can’t just let go. I feel so much for writing as much as I feel for reading. The two just go together. I wouldn’t feel complete without one or the other. Imagine that writing and reading are my arms and if one gives up or is disfunctional, it wouldn’t be the same as having two arms and I wouldn’t be as functional as I was.

It saddens me a little that the people who likes the same things as me, and maybe who reads the same books that I read and write blog posts and/ or has a journal are definitely scarce. I don’t meet a lot of them in person. Maybe most of us are closet writers or closet bloggers. Like me. None of my close friends know about this blog nor I have the plan to tell them about it and let them read it.

That would be really embarrassing.

I’m still dreaming of that say to come when I can have writing as my job. I’d love every single day of it. It wouldn’t matter if I encounter struggles with it but as long as I get to run my fingers on a keyboard or write on a paper manually and have my hand be in pain at the end of the day because of writing too much, I’d bear it because you will bear everything for something you love. The same principle applies to people but let’s focus with Writing here.

Whenever someone would ask me what I want to do after college, I’d hesitate before I answer because there’s only one thing in my mind that I want to do and it’s been the only answer I’ve been giving to the people who asked, but with much reluctance, because they might think of it too much of a dream or very unrealistic or ambitious. But I tell them anyway.

I tell them that I want to become a travel writer. That’s it.

I imagine myself being a nomad for many months a year just going around places, near and far, everywhere and write about them and whatever in those places that could inspire me.

I am not for a mundane employee life with the same routine every single day. I don’t mean to insult them. I am not insulting their jobs. I don’t say that they’re not worthy citizens of this world because they are. I’m just saying that I may not be able to bear it if I allow myself to be stuck in an office when my mind only wishes and lusts for wandering. Income might not be as abundant as if I were to work for a company but the satisfaction it will give me will be priceless. Did that just sound like a cliche?

Well, all of us have dreams and would do anything and everything to at least have a taste on what it’s like to be living our dreams. and I would like to be one of those people who lives their dream.

“A writer is a writer because, even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.” – Junot Diaz

On the 29th of January 2013 I wrote a blog post about my struggles as a writer. I wrote it and knew that I was a writer. I wrote it and knew that I couldn’t live without my stories, without my characters, without my strange habit of angrily punching those keys on the keyboard late every night.

She glanced through the glass window to see if he’s already there. She called him up early this morning to meet her at the coffee shop that afternoon to tell him something. Something that she couldn’t keep anymore. Something that she’d been keeping all through the years. Was he nervous? Of course he was. She heard it in his voice when he told her ‘I love you’. She said it back, but she was not sure if he believed it.

When she entered, she immediately saw him at the table outside by the garden. He picked the place she would have picked. She smiled to herself. She went to him. He hasn’t seen her yet. But when he looked up and met her gaze, her heartbeat jumped and started to quicken. She discreetly took a deep breath and almost forced herself to smile reassuringly; reassuring him that everything’s okay, that he has nothing to worry about. But she was not sure about all of it now. She wondered for a second if she could really tell him.

She thought about their years together. She thought about how it could end in a snap after she tells him. Their friendship could be over.

“Sel.” Said he, as he smiled when she sat in front of him.

He already ordered a cup of coffee, black, his favorite. She smiled nervously. But she’s trying to not let him show it. She could see it in his eyes that he’s already thinking about something. He’s already thinking about what she could possibly tell him that she wanted to meet up right away. She could see his mind running. She could see it in his clear blue eyes.

“How are you? I haven’t seen you in three months after our high school reunion.” He said.

“I know. I…I was busy at the store. Summer’s coming up so I had to deal with the orders for summer wears and stuff…you shouldn’t hear about all of it. It’s a bore.” She chuckled.

“Well, I’m just glad that your store is finally getting well known all over the city.” He said as he nodded.

“Me too. So…uhm. What are you been up to?” She asked.

“Same old stuff. Learning everything about our family business.”

“So you’re really doing that? I thought…”

“Yes. I can do nothing about it. I’m the only heir.”

She can hear the bitterness in his voice. She’d known him long enough to know and notice everything about him without him telling her. They’d been best friends since they were six. And she also knows that it’s not taking over their family riches that he wants to do in his life.

She remembered three months ago when they went together to their high school reunion. Seven years after high school, a lot has changed. Some got married and had kids already, some were with their fiancés and then there’s Selene and Sebastian who still seemed inseparable and even went to their high school reunion together as if nothing eve changed. Nothing, yet, but change will happen like a thunder hitting a person in the middle of nowhere. It will happen that night.

Selene, with her slim figure, she wore a blue dress that flows carelessly and gracefully at the same time, down to her ankle. And a black velvet pumps that made her look so much taller than she already was. Sebastian beside her looked dashing in a midnight blue suit, black leather shoes and his elegant white slim tie. Others would have thought that they planned to have a matching outfit, but they didn’t. Sebastian, when he went over Selene’s apartment to get her, was surprised when he saw her in a blue dress. Selene looked at him and immediately knew what he was thinking. They just laughed about it and affirmed on how much of a best friend they really are to each other.

They picked a table where Sebastian’s old football team sat with their dates. Mostly were their wives. Two were now professional football players and are famous in the country.

“So you two finally got together eh?” Brian said as he put his arms around his wife carefully. His wife was leaning her head on his shoulder.

“No. We’re not together.” Selene said as she and Sebastian looked at each other as they stifled as laugh. Everybody assumed that, they both thought. But they’re best friends.

“WHAT. After all these years you’re still ‘bestfriends’? c’mon.” Luke, who was a few chairs away from them said as he let his hand fall on the table.

“Why are you forcing this, guys? It’s not what you think it is.” Sebastian said after he took a sip of red wine.

“What we have has been platonic and it will always be platonic, right Seb?” Selene said as she elbowed Sebastian lightly.

Sebastian nodded.

“So quit it. All of you.” Sebastian pointed at Brian and Luke playfully.

Brian put his palms up like surrendering. “Alright. Whatever you say.”

The night went on fast. There were tribute videos played. Some cried. Sebastian and Selene laughed secretly at them. They loved it. Just like the good old days before they got in the real world when they went to college in the city. Selene went to a fashion design institute while Sebastian into another university where he studied Business.

They managed to see each other once a week since their schools weren’t that far from each other. Just fifteen minutes away. Selene’s apartment that time was just near her school while Sebastian’s got, of course, his own condominium unit at one of the most expensive neighborhood in the city. Sebastian invited Selene to stay with him but Selene refused. She said that she must learn to stand on her own, which Sebastian respected. But he was always there when Selene needed help.

They were also in each other’s lives when they had relationships. Selene was the one who always got her heart broken because as what Sebastian told her, she’s easily attached to people and that she trusts people so easily. But then he told her that that’s one thing he envies about her, that she always sees the good side of people. While Sebastian, raised in a family where his parents weren’t around much because of their business and traveling around the world, never learned to trust anyone but Selene. He saw how people took advantage of his father and of him just to get them on their good side to take advantage of them. Sebastian felt that it’s only Selene who never cared about how rich he is. She saw him as him and not as Sebastian the heir to Thorpe Corporation.

At the end of the night, a song was played. The master of ceremonies said, “Alas, it is a great joy that the past and the present have come together tonight. This night may not last longer than we wish it to be, but may this night be one of the nights that we’ll never forget and would be looking forward to recreate as we journey on our own lives after high school. May this last song be of a reminder that we may not be eighteen anymore, but we will always be eighteen in our hearts. Have a good night everyone!”

As he walked off the stage, a band came out and a spotlight was on them. Selene felt her heart jumped and stopped and then started beating so quickly that she felt blood rushing to her face. Her eyes widened as the guitar started to be played. She felt Sebastian’s hand beside her. And then the drums. She knew those faces. She had been their fan ever since and now they’re in front of her. She couldn’t believe if that was real. Maybe she was dreaming. Sebastian pulled her up and led her to the center where everybody else started to slow dance. She couldn’t take her eyes off the stage. Sebastian guided her hand on his shoulder and then slid his hand into hers and started to sway side to side as they started singing.

Sebastian pulled her close and whispered into her ear. “I can see that you’re surprised. It makes all my efforts worth it.”

Selene looked at him. “What do you mean? You made this possible?”

Sebastian smiled, almost smugly. “It was hard to get the booking but you know I’ve got connections.”

They chuckled.

“I can’t believe this. Lady Antebellum in our high school reunion. This is bizarre.” Selene said almost breathless.

“I remembered how much you wanted Lady Antebellum at our prom before. And now that I could do something about it, why not grant your wish.”

“Wow. You remember that. Thank you, Seb. Thank you.”

“No problem. I’d do anything for you Sel.” He said as he pulled her closer to him. The song’s chorus was coming.

“You know, this is why they think we have something more than friendship. Normal friends don’t do this to each other.” She said a matter-of-factly.

“But we’re not normal friends, Sel.” Sebastian answered.

You have no idea how much you’ve done for me. And this is just a small way to repay for the some of it. Sebastian thought.

They swayed slowly and in synced, like they were merged into one. Maybe they are. Maybe Selene and Sebastian are one soul, but haven’t just figured it out yet. Sebastian knew that this song was one of Selene’s favorite songs of Lady Antebellum and he requested personally that they’d play this song at their reunion. He also got Selene a collection of their albums with their signatures on it. He knew how Selene would be so psyched out when he would give it to her on her birthday five months from now. He felt her so close to him and he wished that the song wouldn’t end in three minutes. He wished it he could be with her longer.

I haven’t seen you in ages. Sometimes I find myself wondering where you are. For me you’ll always be eighteen and beautiful and dancing away with my heart.

“I’ve ordered for you.” Sebastian said as the waiter arrived with an iced latte with whipped cream on top. Just what Selene would have wanted it.

“Thanks.” She said and then she took a sip.

“So,” Sebastian hesitated. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

“Oh, uhm.” Selene started to brace herself.

What she’s about to say requires from her a lot of courage. This is a leap of faith. And whatever happens after this, she would accept it either way.

“No. Nothing’s wrong. I…I just…The last three months, I’ve been thinking…” She started and then paused as she looked at Sebastian as if waiting for his permission for her to continue.

“I’ve been thinking about….you.”

She felt adrenaline take over her and perhaps didn’t even hear what Sebastian said, who was somehow surprised.

“Me?”

“I am precariously in love with you, Sebastian. At first I thought that it’s nothing. But it’s not Nothing. I kept on denying it to myself. But you see, it’s everything from the beginning. I’ve always been in love with you. It’s not just a best friend thing kind of love what I feel for you. When you danced with me at prom, you were the only one I’ve only thought about dancing with. And when I had all those bad relationships, I kept on coming back to you. And I will keep on coming back to you, Sebastian. You must have not known how much you affect me. You do not know how much my life would suck if you’re not in it. And when you got Lady Antebellum to play at our high school reunion…that was…and when we danced, it felt like I’m with you and only you and not with everybody else who were dancing in the same room as we did. I am in love with you in the most innocent way. I crave for your presence. And even when we would just sit side by side, without any physical contact and would just talk and talk endlessly, that would be enough.” She paused and just looked into Sebastian’s eyes as if she was looking for something. “I have…said what’s purely in my heart. And I’m glad. Now, tell me. Do you not feel the same?” She said it in almost a whisper, like she was in pain.

She was scared of his answer. She was scared that he would say no. She was scared that by what she did, everything between them would come to an end. But she drew courage from one thing that had been keeping her from running away. Hope.

“Sel, I….” He straightened on his seat and leaned closer to Selene. “I wish things could be different…I wish…I wish you told me earlier. I…”

“What do you mean?” Selene didn’t move. She just felt her stomach sinking, together with her heart, slowly making their way on to the ground as if getting ready to be stepped on. She knew it. She knew he’d never feel the same way. She shouldn’t have done this, she thought.

“I love you, Sel. So much. And I’ve…been secretly in love with you for a long time.” Sebastian said carefully.

Selene’s heart almost leaped but then she stopped herself. She knew there was something more. So much more that he wanted to say. So she waited.

“But…” He started and he looked down.

“But what…but what Sebastian?” She said almost in a whisper. She wasn’t even sure if Sebastian would have heard it if they weren’t this close to each other.

Then Sebastian looked at her deep into her dark green eyes that he knew so well. He couldn’t believe that he could make those eyes be full of tears as he would say what he was about to say. And there’s no other way to say it but truthfully.

So, I’m currently walking. At school. Alone. And walking towards the opposite way. Everyone else are going out while I’m walking in because I have to go all the way at the other end of the school because that’s where my mum and I will meet.

So imagine the awkwardness as I go against the flow. Imagine the looks I get as I squeeze my way through and against the crowd. Maybe that’s why I decided to write a blog entry. A rubbish bloody entry just because I feel weird about this.

So now I’m at the part of the campus like literally no one’s around. And it’s a bit dark. And I freaked out for a second there because there were dogs on the road. And oh my good lord, I’m practically alone in this part of the school. It’s 9:30 in the evening. Imagine walking alone along the dim lighted pathway. From going against the crowd to walking alone.

I’m starting to talk none sense now. Finally, I’m now out of the school. I’m ought to go through a narrow-ish pathway again until I reach the main road.

I feel sweat running down my back. I’m in a tropical country by the way, so unless it’s raining hard, it wouldn’t still be a cold night. But that’s okay, I’m burning calories right now. I’m burning the mini pizza I ate earlier.

Just in time, when I was about to cross the street my mum called because she’s at the end of the road already.

So this is the end of the account of my mini adventure tonight so, yes, good night mates!